欣 is a Hong Kong writer and poet who lives in Los Angeles.
Socio-Political Rants
Cartoons of the Holocaust? Is it different from the Images of Mohammad?
Can a country that jails journalists and bloggers and a paper that fires their journalist for speaking against the government honestly make a statement on free speech??
Continuing Discussion
Yan Sham-Shackleton is a Hong Kong writer who lives in Los Angeles. This is her old blog Glutter written mostly in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2007. Although it was a personal blog, Yan focused a lot on free speech issues and democratic movement in Hong Kong. She moved to the US in 2007. View more posts
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online
I think Rob’s comment from the post of which this post is a continuation is thought-provoking. I personally don’t buy the idea of “natural rights” or law, but rather as he noted it seems that free speech as a phenomenon is better understood as a response to human experience. Maybe it’s best understood along a historical line of growth in liberal democracies.
Free speech has a few pragmatic functions, though, that grease the cogs of diverse societies. I think considering today’s technology and the nature of the mohammad cartoon debate show pretty clearly that the world population constitutes one big diverse society. Open and free speech allows polities to influence decisions of national decision makers, and also allows individuals to make political decisions. Another could be that it promotes tolerance: isn’t the act of permitting repugnant expressions itself an act of tolerance? Permitting freedom of speech that offends will in time build the social capacity of heterogenous populations to interact without grievous conflict. Lee Bollinger, law prof @ Columbia, wrote that free speech “involves a special act of carving out one area of social interaction for extraordinary self-restraint, the purpose of which is to develop and demonstrate a social capacity to control feelings evoked by a host of social encounters.” It also also fosters a “marketplace of ideas”, which serves a truth-finding function.
Back to one of Rob’s points, “that free speech [may be] the best way to oppose the destructive forces of human nature, [but] we run into the twin problems that we can judge some systems of thought and culture as being superior to others, and more importantly that there are no hard and fast natural rights”
I’m not sure what Rob meant when he wrote that free speech may be the best way to oppose the destructive forces of human nature. If he means that free speech is designed to promote tolerance, then he’s essentially asserting thereafter that there’s a latent hypocracy in considering tolerance as superior to other conceptions of social interaction. Which makes no sense – I think peace as opposed to open conflict is preferable to the whole of humankind. Although he seems to be suggesting that the issue is binary: that free speech is either a natural right and thus absolute, or native only to certain cultures and societies, and any application by extension should be considered according to the norms of the target community. But I don’t think this objective/subjective argument makes much sense.
Human nature is the same whatever the culture. Where there are differences there is conflict. In heterogenous communities there tends to be more conflict. Free speech may be viewed as a response to such conflict, intended to serve as a way to promote tolerance. While free speech within some communities has become accepted, its application has not been accepted by others (almost always homogenous societies). In a quickly shrinking world – rapid travel, TV, film, radio, the internet, etc. – people from all states may be viewed as members of one large diverse community, rather than particles within a collection of isolated state spheres. And since the world is increasingly interrelated more conflict will occur, and global free speech is a reasonable response in order to promote the intolerances of homogenous, theretofore unchallenged communities?
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COnfused last line:
global free speech is a reasonable response TO NEUTRALIZE the intolerances of homogenous, theretofore unchallenged communities.
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Free speech isn’t sacrosanct. Democracy is based on free speech with responsibilities and a framework of criteria of what is acceptable and not acceptable.
Yan, your post indicates some interesting and disturbing things about free speech. Firstly, you make no distinction between the newspaper agency and the government. The newspaper suggested printing them, not the government making a statement. If we blame the government for what a newspaper does, then do we not become like those who are rioting?
Secondly, are you suggesting that we give rights to some people to speak and others not the right to speak, based on past history? By your approach to free speech, shouldn’t we be able to say anything we want? I don’t believe it should be the case, but I feel just be posing the questions, there is a hint of beginning to give rights to the “right” kind of people to have an opinion.
Also,
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hmm..
1) I think there is no natural right in humanity. However there is an ideal we should all aspire to and be open into to expect it and bestow it for all. It’s called freedom. It’s the very basis we in the modern day don’t think slavery is okay.
2) Saying rights have context is the same argument that people allowed slavery because that those people were born into slavery and thus it was the natural order of things. None of us of are omnipresent enough to choose and decide who should be allowed to have it. It’s easier just to give it to all because it is the best way humans have been able to concieve in respecting others right to speak.
3) It’s different from orders of other natural rights because… the tenants of human rights is to be given equal to ALL, while other kinds of natural rights tend to be given only to a small group of people, either by birth or by religion and thus a form of holding onto power and reinforcing inequality.
4) I agree with Tom. That everything is binary. Thus Rob’s just being depressing because he feels that humanity is destructive. It can also be englightening, hopeful, and thoughtful as well. In statistical terms it would be probably that the “forces” of human nature is at an equal 50-50. I prefer to spend my time debating and wanting to good side.
5) Good point about the news paper not being the government. It’s completely possible the journalists in Iran would like to say what they want but can’t.
6) Nadim if you read the previous comments, I said that I think the comics have to be allowed. And as Tom said, the difference is that Jewish people so far and probably won’t start calling for the death of all Muslims. So therefore those in Iran Editors has proven. YES. Muslim fundementalists are extreme and for the most part, humanity is more tolerant outside of that sphere.
7) You should be careful in reading meaning into questions. Questions itself pose a point of debate, it allows for both sides of opinion to be brough up. The answer can to any question can be “No,” (Or yes). I didn’t suggest in any way that the Iranian paper cannot do what it did. You read that in completely by yourself.
8) And yes, I think past history should be taken into account of any point. Whether someone has something “Worthy” to listen to has everything to do with past history as there is such a thing called hypocracy in the world, and politically motivated speech in this world. It’s like a cheating boyfriend. If he tells you he’s just out late with for work, it’s probably best to be suspicious for a while anyway, until he’s proven otherwise. He’s got all the right to say it. You’ve got all the right not to listen. But it opens up room for debate.
9) I think free speech is sancrosat, (not in a natural order, religious way, but a human political way of thought, of having an opinion on such an ideal) but it does have responsibility to go with it. I always say, free speech is NOT saying what you want, when you want, to whomever you want. It’s the ability to dissent without persecution. It is a protection from human nature in some ways.
Y
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Appendix to point 5. It’s still completely hypocritical that the government in Iran is allowing this one debate to go on “Freely,” while on other hands it comes down hard on the journalists. Why? Because it’s politically motivated.
I think it’s wise to take into account of what Tom said, and the links he’s provided.
It is a proof of western free speech when none of his examples have given to any kind of violence towards it’s maker or the nation or religion or anybody with the general belief that is is allowed.
http://glutter.typepad.com/glutter/2006/02/cartoon_the_cau.html#comment-13963425
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Additional to “And human nature in general.”
I meant you know, er…like the 50% of human nature that I respect and would like more of. Not the bad side of human nature.
As Rob said, under this train of thought, we are of course veering to the debate of “Civilization,” after all it’s historical creation in the word is the western context that humans should be “Civilized,” and therefore learn to control their more violence and unseeming behavior for the sake of “Civilization.” Which is an onward forward of progress.
That of course is the basis of all western thought in the first place, including the idea of free speech.
It’s problematic in many ways, because it also alludes to superiority intrinsic to the west. It is the basis of much environmental destruction, as it also comes with “Taming” of wilderness and this also leads to the “taming” of “Non-Western” cultures and people for the better. This lead to colonization, and the slavery of Africans in the western world. And in it’s extreme the extermination of the jews in Nazi Europe.
The good side of western thought created the idea of “Human Rights” to protect itself from the bad side of western thought. The creation of those rights was a direct answer to the inequality that was seen.
Soo…it’s probably better to err in on the side of good, and try best to provide and fight for the human freedom for all as the alternative to what was going on previously and today.
Whatta ya think?
yan
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Great debate – I’ve got to get back to work, but I’m looking forward to reading and hopefully contributing more later!
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What I am homing in on is an apparent dilemma (and also an intellectual trap for Glutter). What is the message that we send to the Muslim world? Do we say ‘Free speech is a fundamental human right and must be respected by all, including you’ or do we say ‘We in the West have learned through bitter experience that free speech is an essential component of an open, prosperous, tolerant society and we are not prepared to sacrifice what it has taken us so long to perfect’.
The problem is that if we follow the first argument, lets call it fundamentalist, we place ourself in a position where we have exactly the same power of argument as the Islamists, that of a fanatic. If we follow the second argument, empiricist, we slide down the slope of pragmatism where we can be prepared to pare away slices of the right of free speech, a bit of libel law here, a bit of national security there, sensitivity to minorities etc. I think this is the position that most people have taken above.
So, if there are no absolutes, what power of persuasion do we still have over the Muslim world? The position would be that there are competing views on what constitutes acceptable or free speech, which are irreconcilable. And so on to the Clash of…
The second part of my post which I didn’t get on to was that if we free ourselves of the world of absolutes and set about making a case for the existence of rights, or norms of behaviour, or customs or any other artefacts of culture, based on an argument for their utility or some other empirical basis, then is it open season on other cultures? If we are allowed to call Islam a backward relgion for its attitudes towards homosexuals, women, usury, free speech and the barbarism of sharia law as some in Europe have, then what else is fair game?
It’s funny how the concepts of absolutism and relativism juxtapose themselves in the argument above. Only in the post modern world of cultural relativism would we even allow fundamentalism to exist, and that goes for all fundamentalism.
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I was really hoping you’d be on one of your off days when I posted that Yan. 😉
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Hahaha. No it was one of the few “on” days I have had here for a while. 🙂 I was all jazzed up from obliterating one very annoying person on that pannel I was on. I was on a run…
As for Rob. I am not in any “interlectual” trap at all. I believe in free speech not as a concept but as a working ideal that we live with. Personally I don’t care the “Hows” and “Whys” interlectually of the implementation of the system. There are plenty of people in western world who don’t believe in it either, but the system is a such in those countries, as well as places like Hong Kong, that even if you don’t believe in it, or have no interlectual ability to think it through, you still have to eat it because it’s law.
As far as I am concerned, Muslim countries should just chuck every person whose committed a violent act over the cartoons in jail as they should. Not because it’s even a “free speech” issue. It’s a “You’ve broken the law by burning businesses and threatenning non-muslim people and acting like a violent fool buddy” kinda way. The fact many of those people are still out and about shows that the kind of violence these people hold over the rest of society is immense.
However, I am still into the absolutism vs relativism debate because it’s fun. But I have to think about it a bit more before I get back to ya.
Yan
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I haven’t sprung the trap yet 🙂
I think the absolutist/relativist idea is important. Personally I think we are seeing the death of the Postmodern world, not that I lament its passing, and there is a bit of a void left in its wake. Do you get any sense of this from looking at the art world?
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I’m not sure whether the absolute/relative debate’s all that important. Maybe it’s important when considering the reasons behind the phenomenon of free speech in western countries, but I think the issue can pragmatically be examined in simple terms:
Free speech promotes social tolerance in diverse communities. Heretofore homogenous communities increasingly come into contact with the heterogenous world community through changes in technology, such as instantaneous communication, access to near infinite amounts of information via the internet, rapid, mass international travel, round-the-clock news dissemination, etc. Because homogenous communities must interact with diverse populations social friction and conflict emerge. Conflict is destructive; harmony is constructive, and thus the better alternative. To promote harmony and tolerance states should allow a relatively high degree of free speech (with sensible limits depending on the community). Otherwise, events like this cartoon debacle occur, leaving people either enraged or scratching their heads in wonder.
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But Tom, isn’t debating the smallest of fine print exactly what lawyers do?
Y
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Actually what Tom said about the ever decreasing homegenous world is post modernism. How would you define it Rob, coz otherwise I would have to say, “no.” to the answer of post modernism disappearing. It is in acedemic circles but the world itself is increasingly post-modern all the time.
Y
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I got it!!
I am am absolutist in terms of the allowance of relativism. I believe people should be able to debate and have the ability to disagree and come to the terms they personally believe in.
It doesn’t really mean I am an absolutist in terms of free speech but the outcome of it. But the other choice which is have totalitarianism as well as fundemental religion, those ideas cannot be compatitble with the idea of a open society therefore, one has only one choice in that. Which is to have free speech. It’s like… I asolutely want a society where people can believe in fundemental religious ideas and totalitarianism if they so choose, but at the same time both must be allowed at once. Therefore really. It’s something that should keep everyone happy while the others don’t.
I don’t know if it makes sense…. yet…
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🙂 Wading in the fine print is where I spend most of my time, for sure.
On the subject of the cartoons, a Pakistani cleric today announced a $1,000,000 bounty to anyone who kills the cartoonists who drew the Mohammad cartoons in Denmark. Which is nothing short of solicitation of murder.
I have to ask: What sort of religious leader – and legal community – would solicit (or allow someone to solicit) the retributive intentional killing of an artist for his cartoons?
Bah. This is bald-faced terrorism in it’s purest form.
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Actually reading back, I should have wrote absolutist/empiricist. There is a difference between being relativist, which is about making allowances for differences, and being empirical, which is about drawing conclusions based on observation and experience. I guess that kind of messed up the debate, sorry.
Briefly, the intellectual trap is this, that if we allow that the empirical route, the route that the West has largely taken to construct its political and economic system, is the best route, then how can we argue with China that they should have democracy, free speech, human rights etc. now when they can argue that their system is based on their history, their common experience, their culture and consequently their empirical appraisal of their situation. If we’ve abandoned the theory of absolute natural rights, which most commentators above have, in the face of the absolutist position of religous extremists, how can we then take absolutist postions on other issues in other contexts without being hypocrites?
On Postmodernism, yes the question is influenced by what you mean by Postmodernism. I was really referring to the orthodox view of PM as the challenging of grand narratives or accepted truths. It seems the acceptance of the supremacy of no grand cultural narrative over another is dying a quick death. The tolerance in Europe for the Muslim culture is waning in the face of the demands of not even radical Islam. Affirmative action policy in the US appears to be easing. The demands by African countries for recognition of the damages caused by colonialism is met with polite indifference and there has even been an attempt by the Labour Government no less, in the UK, to rehabilitate Britain’s colonial history. Furthermore, in the academic world, there is a concerted challenge to see off an attempt to have pseudo scientific creationist theories taught alongside evolutionary theory. All in all there is a robust defense of grand narratives underway, perhaps the arts are lagging in this.
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What after all that you tell me that you didn’t mean it??
Argh.
As for art. Art’s really sorta shitty in someways now. It doesn’t deal with any grand issues. It’s like, “Those who think of the most witty thing to say wins.”
I kinda hate it. I am hoping that somewhere there is another bunch of us who want to do things with a bit more meaning, and we can just sorta sweep the meaningness art trend away…
Y
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I just mean’t it in a different way, I still stand by my original statement. Sorry, I was on holiday and on dialup. I have a very short attention span for writing this stuff.
The contemporary art that holds meaning for me is that which is personal, like the stuff from South Africa, everything else is just being a tourist.
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I think there is some personal art that everyone can relate to as long as they talk about the “Grand Issues.” When I said I didn’t like the stuff now, I am merely talking about some of the really “hip” people that’s just so cool. But hey, that’s what people said about Keith Haring and Basquait, maybe in twenty years time I will get it.
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